£850k cost for Councillors – Value for money?

Home Forums Wrexham.com Forums Wrexham Forum £850k cost for Councillors – Value for money?

  • Author
    Posts
  • #53558

    Rob
    Participant

    Following on from our story – Councillor Costs Revealed | Wrexham.com

    Do people on the forums think they get ‘value for money’ from Councillors?

    #55916

    Wrexham PC Repairs
    Participant

    @Rob 700 wrote:

    Following on from our story – Councillor Costs Revealed | Wrexham.com

    Do people on the forums think they get ‘value for money’ from Councillors?

    With regards to my Councillor then it’s a big fat NO. I think that the elected Plaid Cymru councillors are worth every single penny that they receive, there sadly isn’t a Plaid Cymru candidate in my ward though.

    #55910

    Liam
    Participant

    The bit that shocked me about that was how much some councillors are claiming for petrol. I know it’s hardly cheap, but I fail to see how you can invoice for £1,500 for carrying out council business.

    #55913

    wrexview
    Participant

    Why do some County Councils have a much lower basic allowance paid to Councillors? Cambridge County Council for example have a basic allowance of £7610, compared to £12,681 in Wrexham. The difference is £5071 per Councillor, per year. When you multiply this by 52, the number of Councillors on the Council, it adds up to £263,692 per year and a massive £1,054768 over a four year Council term. The functions performed by the Councillor serving on these Councils must be broadly similar so why the huge gap in renumeration?

    #55917

    Arfon Jones
    Participant

    The basic allowance in Wrecsam is similar across Wales, it is now set by an Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales which frankly is long overdue. The big differences across Wales is the Special Responsibilty Allowance paid to Cabinet/Board Members who lead on certain areas like Environment, Housing, Education etc. In Wrecsam the SRA is about £6,000 which the Cllr gets on top of their allowance which then brings it up to £19,000. But if you take the SRA in Ynys Mon where Commissioners have gone in because it was judged to be a failing authority, the Lead Members used to get £17,000 SRA per year bringing their total allowance to nearly £40,000! (Says it all!)

    Perhaps the reason for lower allowances in Cambridgeshire County Council is that Cambs Council does not undertake the whole remit of what Welsh Unitary Authorities do because there are 2 layers of local government in Cambridgeshire, the County Council and 5 District Council also delivering services and probably the Cllrs in those districts also get an allowance.

    It was similar in Wales before 1996, when you had Clwyd County Council and the district councils of Wrexham Maelor, Glyndwr, Delyn and was it Alyn and Deeside? underneath the county council.

    Hope this answers your question.

    #55918

    Arfon Jones
    Participant

    The bit that shocked me about that was how much some councillors are claiming for petrol. I know it’s hardly cheap, but I fail to see how you can invoice for £1,500 for carrying out council business.

    Liam – Bear in mind that one of the biggest travelling claims is by the Councillor for Glyn Ceiriog, is it fair therefore to compare the claim of someone who lives considerable distance from the Guildhall with someone who say lives in Acton.

    #55914

    wrexview
    Participant

    It seems that very few of our amply renumerated sitting Councillors have made the effort to reply to the Wrexham.com questions so far.

    #55911

    Rob
    Participant

    @wrexview 711 wrote:

    It seems that very few of our amply renumerated sitting Councillors have made the effort to reply to the Wrexham.com questions so far.

    We have had a couple more answers in but closing it off shortly.

    We are aware of a couple of reasons, perhaps barriers and er ‘excuses’ which we will try and mention in our ’roundup’.

    There has been a couple of murmuring of lack of IT skills as well , although we did offer a paper based reply route if required. It will be interesting to see if those have had , or will have the ‘free laptop’ that I think councillors get! :D

    #55919

    Arfon Jones
    Participant

    We all have laptops if we want them, personally I use web access to council via my own PC. The council also provides training in IT and the use of laptops.

    #55921

    Hugh Jordan
    Participant

    @Arfon Jones 710 wrote:

    one of the biggest travelling claims is by the Councillor for Glyn Ceiriog

    See? Vote for me instead, and the council will save 3 miles on each journey!

    But really, if I do get elected next week, i would love to be able to get to the Guildhall and back on public transport, which I can use free of charge.

    Sadly, the “service” will not permit this.

Content is user generated and is not moderated before posting. All content is viewed and used by you at your own risk and Wrexham.com does not warrant the accuracy or reliability of any of the information displayed. The views expressed on these Forums and social media are those of the individual contributors.
Complaint? Please use the report post tools or contact Wrexham.com .

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

More...

Three ‘never events’ reported at health board during February

News

Clwyd South MS welcomes plans for baby loss certificates for bereaved parents

News

More detail on club accounts as owners will ‘continue to offer minority equity positions to strategic partners’

News

Turnover up 75% as Wrexham AFC say ‘losses shouldnt be repeated’ as payroll nears £7m

News

Lasit Spearheads a Clean Revolution: Laser Technology Redefines Industrial Cleaning

News

Shape Your Future: Unique Student Opportunities at Wrexham University

News